Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday September 12, 2013 @07:58PM
from the making-it-worse dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder writes of Verizon's diabolical plan to to charge websites for carrying their packets — a strategy that, if it wins out, will be the end of the Internet as we know it. 'Think of all the things that tick you off about cable TV. Along with brainless programming and crummy customer service, the very worst aspect of it is forced bundling. ... Now, imagine that the Internet worked that way. You'd hate it, of course. But that's the direction that Verizon, with the support of many wired and wireless carriers, would like to push the Web. That's not hypothetical. The country's No. 1 carrier is fighting in court to end the Federal Communications Commission's policy of Net neutrality, a move that would open the gates to a whole new — and wholly bad — economic model on the Web.'"

"This would be funny if weren't so likely to be taken seriously by the regulatory agencies which SHOULD currently be waterboarding Verizon's CEO for even suggesting this. With boiling hot oil."

It ISN'T being taken seriously by the regulatory authorities. That's why there is a lawsuit. The regulatory authorities (FCC) realize full well that this would not be in the public interest, even if it were workable.

Verizon is trying to fight their regulatory authority in court. That's what it's all about. Verizon doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of succeeding, but they are trying anyway.

No. They're trying to charge content producers for using their network and end up with control over access, which will let them choke off that control, bundle the web, and charge on both sides of the equation - for the ability to push content, and for the ability to pull content.

The web currently doesn't allow a monopoly on content and on bandwidth, it's completely open, it's not a fucking bundle, and I can't rightly understand the confusion of ideas which could lead you to ask this question. You pay for access to the network, not for any specific bundles of information, how is that anything like cable, and how the hell do you think this has anything to do with offering the web a la carte.

Providers like Verizon should remain a dumb pipe, no matter how much they try to control the network. If they want control, it's certainly not so that they can offer you the web 'a la carte', it's so that they can impose control.

They're a carrier. To expect Verizon or AT&T etc to behave like a wonderful, equitable business partner is to expect the earth to move from orbit on the propulsion of sparrow flatulence.

Charging for stuff is what they do, and they will relentlessly continue to try. And each time, like every other time, we'll crush them.

Do your part: tell those crazy telecom guys: monopolies were granted, not earned. We'll take away your easements, your rights of way, your utility company plates, and your seat at the table-- again. Your bribes to Congress and the legislature, and your armies of highly paid lawyers will lose once more, but you big bad boys-- you'll go back to your shareholders and exclaim one more time: we tried!!

As a carrier they have a financial duty to not piss off their end users and contribute to the collapse of western economic systems which in turn will destroy all their assets and their property.

As a monopoly they have a right to run their business how we tell them to and make a small profit. Should be run as an NPO with extreme oversight (albiet you will never have an NPO that size without a little corruption). I.e. monopolies can't be for profit ever. But its no better then socialism.

If you give them a motive to keep costs down by capping their rate increases, you get something a little bit better than a government monopoly... but not a whole lot better. The crazy thing is that Verizon and Comcast compete in my area for both phone and television, and yet the world has not ground to a halt and the skies are not cluttered with wires. I think perhaps we can rethink our ideas of where monopolies should exist.

You think for one minute that Verizon and Comcast want a "free market"?

Is it a free market when there are only a very few players? Are you old enough to remember when there were hundreds of ISPs in every city? When there was actual competition?

The problem is, we're not really Verizon or Comcast's customers. None of us choose them because we like those companies or the services they offer. We choose them because there are no other choices. So now Verizon pays $130billion (with a "B") for Vodaphone, and the only reason they do is because interest rates are near zero (look at the bond prices, not the prime rate). Forget for a moment that if we actually had any enforcement of the law, that merger would get laughed out of court. For that to be worthwhile, interest rates would have to stay near zero for 20 years. But Verizon sees the writing on the wall. They figure they can take out another competitor and then just soak the people who pay them for service (not customers mind. the customers are their "strategic partners", production divisions, advertisers, and the people who they sell your information to).

You're not a consumer, you're the commodity. You're what they selling. You're trapped. Go ahead, move to Comcast and Comcast can say, Go ahead, move to Verizon. They don't give a fuck because they're gonna get paid either way. 'Cause where you gonna go?

Sure, there were hundreds of ISPs, but that's not real competition, because to use any of those ISPs, you were forced to purchase service from the local telco monopoly. That's not competition at all.

These days, because there's no real way for hundreds of ISPs to install physical infrastructure to your house/apt, and because dial-up speeds are impossible to use with modern internet applications, the telco and cable monopolies have become the ISPs as well.

The simple fact is that there's no way to have anything resembling a free market with ISPs, and there never has been. Last-mile connections are a huge capital expense. The only way to do it is to have a monopoly or duopoly, and have government regulation to keep these companies in line. Or have the government provide ISP service directly, as has been done in several small cities already.

That's effectively what a public utility with a rate board is, but since they still need to make a profit they tend to keep their size (and their service) as low as they can get away with. Of course, with the government in charge you'd get the extra size, but probably little in the way of extra service.:)

In many countries public utilities are run by a commercial company, for profit.

Sounds odd? Not really. There are two quite easy ways to control them, and push them to provide good service while maximising their profit and keeping prices to the end user reasonable.

Power companies in Hong Kong, are commercial. They have their monopoly, they have limited pricing power (they must apply to the government to change prices), and have certain supply obligations, like must provide power to anyone within their area. They can make a profit, which is a percentage of their fixed asset investment. Invest more, be allowed to make more money. As a result we have exceptionally reliable power for a reasonable price. An improvement here would be to separate infrastructure and supply, but it's not that bad as it stands.

Telephone/internet (ADSL) infrastructure, like in The Netherlands, is owned almost entirely by KPN, the former state-owned telephone company. They have the job to provide the infrastructure, and accept other ISPs on that same infrastructure at a fixed price. All ISPs pay the same for access to the homes. And KPN makes profits by keepking their cost lower than the set price they may charge for access. Currently there are dozens of ISPs available for end users, competing with one another, keeping their price low and their service quality high.

In Europe there are more such separations of infrastructure and supply: power lines and power supply. Gas pipes and gas supply. Railways and train services. Not all of it runs perfectly well, but it's at least the correct direction.

So yes sure it takes some kind of government regulation - but not necessarily government taking part in the company. The key problem in the US is probably that ANY governmnet intervention is frowned upon, even if it helps freeing a market from a monopolist's stranglehold and allowing many more players to take part.

A good start in the US would be to separate the infrastructure and content provider aspects of the business. Right now, Time Warner Cable has an incentive to slow down, block, or otherwise limit other video sites because they could cause a drop in Time Warner Cable's video services. They use their monopoly of the infrastructure to protect their content provider business.

Imagine if the company was separated, though. Let's call them Time Warner Internet (TWI) and Time Warner Television (TWT). TWI would on

I'll go off the Internet, that's where. If they manage to price it out of the reach of most people, the Internet will die. Cheer up though, we lived fine without it before, we'll live fine without it again -- if necessary. Here's the thing though: The Internet is not just a bunch of wires strung up between the West Coast and the East Coast of the United States, it's a world-wide network of connectivity providers. The entire planet is using it now; millions of businesses and billions of people in every country. Do you really think that the rest of the world is going to put up with one or two U.S.-based companies fucking with the Internet on this level? I think not. There are other backbone providers than Comcast and Verizon, and the reality is that there is only the most tenuous of agreements between all of them to make the Internet, as a whole, work as a global network. In the same way that the Internet can reroute itself around damage, it can be rerouted around Verizon and Comcast, leaving them in walled gardens of their own design if that's what they want.

As a carrier they have a financial duty to not piss off their share holders

FTFY

and contribute to the collapse of western economic systems which in turn will destroy all their assets and their property.

Unless we somehow end up in the dark ages, why would they care. Hell, some kind of dystopian Mad Max world would be great for them. That way they can just go out an burn down your house if you go over your bandwidth cap too many times. Now they have to issue warnings and pay lawyers and worry about those pesky laws and such.

As a monopoly they have a right to run their business how we tell them to and make a small profit. Should be run as an NPO with extreme oversight (albiet you will never have an NPO that size without a little corruption). I.e. monopolies can't be for profit ever. But its no better then socialism.

I'm a fairly big believer in capitalism, to a point. But some things just need to be socialized. We currently have a hybrid system, and the sooner we embrace that the better. Social Security is socialized. If congress wouldn't have raided the trust fund so often over the years, it'd have been in a lot better shape for longer than it was(but that's a different discussion). Healthcare should be socialized too. If people would get over this myth that the US is a strictly capitalist society, then we wouldn't have the abortion that is the affordable care act. If we're lucky, it will be bad enough that the country will figure out that socialism isn't always a bad thing and we can move on to something better. It's painfully obvious that what we have in the telecommunications industry is heading towards a train wreck. Maybe we can also stop privatizing profits and socializing losses while were at it too.

It's the other way around. Democracy works best in good times; in horrible times, you want a dictatorship. People don't want to take risks or accept short-term hardship for long-term rebuilding and stability; if the economy is terrible and the world is terrible and everything is terrible, people don't want to bleed a little to relieve the pressure so they can get better. They're in too much pain, they don't want more pain. Somebody has to force them down and make them bleed.

Verizon argues that the FCC doesnâ(TM)t have authority to regulate an information service, a class of communications that the agency has previously exempted from most regulation. The net neutrality rules are a violation of Verizonâ(TM)s First Amendment free speech rights and its Fifth Amendment property rights, the company has argued.

Well, we could just convince congress to give the FCC the necessary authority.That has about as much chance as getting the cable co's labeled as common carriers

while you are correct that verizon's free speech argument is bullshit, net neutrality is not a free speech issue as such. Freedom of speech is a freedom from government interference with speech. Net neutrality certainly promotes speech that is already free, but its absence would not constitute government censorship.

you seem to not understand how constitutional law actually works or what freedom of speech actually means. Tons of laws have been passed and held constitutional that restrict speech. Laws against inciting violence or physical harm, defamation, fighting words, and obscenity. The first amendment was written and ratified by men not that far removed from ancestors in England who were clapped in irons and literally branded, on the face, a seditious libeler for vocally disagreeing with the government. It is first

They have common carrier status already; they do not exert editorial control and thus are not liable for crimes or civil infringements that their network carries.. What they need is to lose that status if they get their way, thus becoming liable for all content passing across their network.

Exactly. This is a very important point. If they become responsible for content, their liability will be enormous and they will be unable to exert editorial control over so much material. They'd be nuts to accept such exposure. As long as we can ensure that they do not receive an exemption from current law, net neutrality should be safe.

At one time, I thought of creating a/. called "ISPs are not common carriers".

No, ISPs are not common carriers. They have some of the same protections that common carriers enjoy, but they are not common carriers. If ISPs were common carriers, we would not even be talking about the possiblity of losing net neutrality.

That's where I think it went wrong, when a cable company would come to a city with a take-it-or-leave-it deal. The city should have let out for bids, and then let the voters decide. That way the cable companies - and now the ISPs - would be really competing to get the consumers, rather than the common occurrence of the b.s. choice of cable or ADSL at exorbitant fees and limits. (Yes, I'm leaving out dial-up and satellite, each, for various reasons.)

They get away with what they can get away with. This isn't about morality or customers, this is about revenue and Wall Street. Make no mistake. Punching them in the face is useless, corporations only feel pain when they lose revenue or stock value. Otherwise: no pain.

One wonders how they can get away, in any forum, by claiming "We invested in this, we need to make a profit" without literally being punched in the face.

Because 1) it is true that they invested in their infrastructure that is being used to carry the data, and 2) as a publicly traded company they do need to make a profit. And 3) punching the CEO of Verizon in the face wouldn't change either 1 or 2, and would result only in you going to jail, and most people are smart enough to know that and exercise self-restraint.

That said, they are making a profit. They're charging their users for the access. This is why the statement in the court filing that "And it tak

BrickPackets Inc. purchases an OC-192 pipe from Level 3 Communications for $75,000/year plus $145,000 one time fee to run the lines (nice discount).

Joe Dumbass has purchased the service of having access to the Internet, to be able to address and communicate with other things that have access to the Internet.

BrickPackets Inc. has purchased the service of having access to the Internet, to be able to address and communicate with other things that have access to the Internet. BrickPackets Inc. has a much bigger pipe, and their TOS doesn't restrict their usage patterns with caps or usage guidelines (i.e. they're allowed to host network services like Web sites or streaming video servers).

It's completely fair that Joe Dumbass isn't allowed to host Web servers or streaming media or whatever. It is, however, a fact that Joe Dumbass has a connection to THE INTERNET, and BrickPackets Inc. has a connection to THE INTERNET, and Joe Dumbass is going to use his connection to watch live news streaming from BrickPackets Inc.'s servers. Verizon's service contract to Joe Dumbass says that he will have access to THE INTERNET, and thus blocking BrickPackets Inc. streaming media content from Joe Dumbass is infringing on their service contract with Joe Dumbass. If they do so, they can't bill themselves as providing "Internet Access" anymore.

HTTPS doesn't protect against the ISP knowing who you are communicating with. As for VPN, we're already seeing some places blocking VPN. If ISPs turn their Internet offerings into pay-per-view, how long until VPN and all similar technologies are blocked?

I'm fine with them getting their way... as long as they lose their common carrier status and become liable for all content passing across their network.

I think the point you missed is that they are already not a common carrier for non-telecommunications services and that's why they can claim first amendment rights to control what is said using their information service infrastructure. They can't lose a common carrier status that they don't have.

Seems like there's a simple solution. Verizon's only choice is to try and degrade service for sites that don't pay. If all sites refuse to pay then customers will complain about the degraded service and possibly choose other ISPs. Customers that want to prevent this sort of behavior can simply refuse to visit or given business to sites that do work these sorts of deals. Thus discouraging both sides from doing this.
Vote with your wallets people.

First, the example you provide isn't a co-op laying fiber, it's a city doing it. And second, the end result was the telco rolling out fiber of their own, which is just what the citizens wanted in the first place.

This is Verizon Telecom (eg FiOS) not Verizon Wireless. (Though they will soon be one in the same). The FCC only regulated wireline ISPs in it's Open Internet Rules. Thus Verizon Wireless can play all the games they want and sell their paying customers to content providers at will.

However, the case that went to federal court this week was brought by Verizon Telecom so that they could charge Netflix, YouTube, et al.. And they don't even need to degrade service, they just need to drag their feet on peering [arstechnica.com]

If Verizon allows this to happen, people might actually start voting on it. Like, for REALS voting. They'll avoid that possibility at all costs. Even dictators do need to make their citizens like them somewhat: if enough people dislike you, they'll make other options happen, no matter what.

Double-check with some extensive web searches, DSLReports, and so forth. A lot of small ISPs still exist, but because they don't advertise on TV or huge billboards, the vast majority of people in the area (including geeks) are only aware of the big-name ISPs in their area and maybe one or two smaller ones at best.

1) If there are competitors but their service isn't as good by switching you're helping put more resources in the hands of those competitors. Yes you might have to make some compromises in the short term but if enough other people do the same the competitor will be able to spend the money to provide the same service that Verizon is.

2) You may be able to gain herd immunity. Other areas do have competition. The areas with viable competition typically have it because they

Your logic is ridiculous. The part where you claim it's not a sacrifice just because we used to not have it.

We lived without toothbrushes once. We lived without cars once. We lived without deodorant once. We lived without houses once. When nobody had those things it wasn't a sacrifice. When you live in a world that expects you to have those things, it is.

Now, one could argue that it's a *worthy* sacrifice, but that's a completely different concept.

This is stupid. You think people should be willing to give up their careers and livelihoods and become homeless so they don't have to use a company's services? Not having internet service leads directly to unemployment for many, many people (and probably most Slashdotters) these days.

If you depend on your internet connection to do you job, can you sacrifice your connection? What if most of the people who live in your area are ok with a censored web, because most people just don't care. Do you think voting with your wallet will have any impact?

Or, to put it another way: "Dat's a nice website you have dere. It'd be a shame if something were to HAPPEN to it. You know, like slowing to a crawl or something? But if you just pay us for Super High Speed Service, we'll make sure our customers see your site just fine."

As for ISP's customers, many don't have a choice. If I want high speed Internet, my choices are Time Warner Cable or nothing. Verizon has DSL service, but they've shown that they are increasingly ditching it so jumping to that would be l

Because by the time this happens, I'll be on a beach in Panama, with no electricity, no internet and no need for either. Just me, a case of rum, a nice cool breeze and the sound of waves gently lapping at my feet. Verizon & FB can suck it.

...and two weeks later when the rum runs out you won't be able to conveniently order another case on your phone without leaving the hammock. Unless you're not an alcoholic like me and it last long enough to set up your own still I suppose.

Seriously though, the vast majority of the 1st world (and a good # of the 3rd) depend on communication being readily available. While I know these companies are looking for new, creative ways to scratch out a few more % profit they're going about it backwards. Don't try

Monopolizing greed only benefits the greedy. I see this as the writing on the wall, goodbye Verizon, the consumer has spoke. I sought a different carrier after dismal service from Verizon. If this is the future of phone service, then I'll go back to a land line with a rotary dial. Since few people will understand my last statement, it will be the most secure system ever.

When it comes down to it Verizon can shit in one hand and charge in the other and in the end they will have a hand full of shit and no customers.Historically , there have been loads of schemes since the inception of the internet to charge extra, they are all as successful as flapping your arms really hard to fly.Usually this is the seismic activity that occurs just before a company hires a fleet of "consultants" to streamline....Sh'long Verizon, we hardly cared for ye.

I wonder if it would be possible to build our own truly decentralized "swarm-net" using a mesh of devices that talk directly to each other. Because it's looking more and more like we need something exacly like that.

I'm envisioning some sort of wireless uplink bridging device with a zero-configuration discovery protocol that seeks out and automatically connects nearby sibling devices. It would need to a wireless protocol with better range than 802.11, have distributed DNS and be IPv6-only between nodes. Such a device could be connected to a router's WAN port to serve as the single uplink or to a LAN port and serve as a bridging device to connect to Internet and "swarm-net" sites. We could keep on using all of the great Internet technologies and protocols. Everything would be encrypted. E-VREY-THING.

Obviously, adoption would be the biggest hurdle. But, yeah, we need something like that.

BUT I can see Verizon chomping at the bit regarding video streaming. It competes against their cable offering and their own PPV, and uses their infrastructure in an expensive way, for free. QoS for the web and QoS for Netflix streaming are two completely different ballgames.

They're paying $130 Billion to buy the remaining 45 percent of Verizon Wireless they don't already own. They obviously have some more "diabolical" plans to maximize their investment on infrastructure, be it wired or wireless.

I pay my ISP to view the internet. I give them my money to access exactly the sites they are complaining about. If they did not give me access to those sites I would not pay them. I think most customers feel the same way. Nobody pays $100 a month for broadband access so they can send an occasional email or look at wikipedia once in a while. Verizon should be thanking sites like Netflix for creating the demand that allows to get paid by lots and lots of people like me.

Of course, if Verizon wants to pay me for adding demand to their system (thus allowing them to charge the content providers) then I suppose I might think differently. They can't collect on both ends of the transaction while adding absolutely no value in the middle. Verizon - when do I get my check for watching Netflix?

And in other news a major airline said that it would add a "fuel bill" on top of current ticket prices, because obviously you are not paying enough... When I pay $X per month, I am paying to have packets delivered. When I run a website, my "host" pays $X per month to have those packets delivered. The web is nothing without all of us and if Verizon pushes forward with that lunacy then the Verizon "subnet" will be a cold, dark place.

One of the arguments that the ISP are making is that they are *more* than a provider, but actually a type of "editor"."..The company [Verizon] claims that requiring it to treat all traffic equally violates the First and Fifth Amendments. The Fifth Amendment, it says, protects against having to give other companies a "permanent easement" on its network, claiming a kind of unfair digital eminent domain. And it argues that the First Amendment says the FCC can&rsquo;t force it to distribute others&rsquo

I have a bit of difficulty following this issue, because our ISP's invariably try to sell their customer for an internet plan where you get a connections speed and data allowance. There are some variations in the limitations, for instance some ISP's charge for excess data, most shape, or throttle the speed to 64k/64k or 256k/64k, some count upload data, some don't. Where they're all consistent is that you are paying for an internet connection and you get that service without any problems regarding what you

If Verizon decides they want to put a limit on how much can be used on their pipes then let them. It's only a matter of time before Google Fiber sets up shop in Verizon's backyard and eats their lunch.

I pay for a pipe, I expect to be able to send and receive packets to whomever I want. It's up to me as the user to decide if I'm wasting bandwidth. If I don't want to pay as much and save money then I should consider how to use less bandwidth.

The problem is that ISPs have been getting away with overprovisioning, underdelivering on bandwidth promises and pocketing the massive profits. If you can't make money with people using the bandwidth you sold them then perhaps you should price your product accordingly. If you're selling burst speeds and not explaining to customers your limits then it's your own fault.

Hosted for free? No. Your user is paying you for the transit in both directions.

If your users aren't aware of how much bandwidth they are using perhaps you as an ISP should so something to educate them.

Quite frankly, if ISPs want to limit bandwidth usage then they should be required to show the bandwidth usage that has been used and should be required to provide exact limits as to what customers are provided. This shouldn't be any different than how cell phone companies have to show minutes used.

Instead they've been getting away with marketing burst speeds and creating the appearance of unlimited bandwidth usage (when in reality most of the big ones will start threatening to turn you off if you're using too much).

You keep brining up Google. What service does Google have that turns a users system into a server in order to access the service?

In my particular case I know exactly how much bandwidth I'm using. I actually have Cacti graphs. The only major thing that I can think of that I use that turns my system into a server without being obvious is the downloader for some game updates that uses bittorrent. As an ISP I'd think you'd be thrilled because these clients typically prefer to talk to IPs that are in the same blocks and often save a lot of transit across your peers.

Look, I pay for a class of service (5Mbit down, 640Kbit up.) Deliver that level of service. Period.

As long as I'm happy with the responsiveness of my system with that level of service, it's none of your god damned business what applications or websites I'm using or visiting to chew up what I've paid for.

Your "throttling" attempts and "bandwidth caps" are nothing more than trying to steal back what I've already paid for.

ISPs have no problems with their business models. It's Google who has a problem with their business models... if there's a penny left on the table that Google (which is the force behind the regulations) can't grab. Or if ISPs, who build the Internet, actually get to make something for their hard work.

If you run an ISP and still don't understand that you're not the interesting part of the internet, then you have never understood your place on the 'net. ISPs exist for one reason, and one reason only: to allow people to access content. Period. The "Economic Balance" isn't "tipping towards content companies"...the content companies *are* *the* *things* *your* *customers* *want*. The only thing they want from you is to get to those companies (or each other). You are a conduit, a tube, even. Nothing more.

The regulations prohibit ISPs from charging more when content providers waste bandwidth

If your users want the traffic, then the content providers aren't "wasting" it...your customers (who are already paying you for those bits, I should point out) are using what they've paid for. Saying that content providers are wasting bandwidth is basically complaining that your users are actually *using* what you sold them...which is really not a winning argument.

You say these are scare tactics to push regulation one direction, but I think this is at worst scare tactics to prevent it being pushed in the OPPOSITE direction. It seems to me that we're at a happy balance between ISPs and google, in other words, regulations seem good balancing us between one group of greedy corporations and another group of greedy corporations. I see your point that some net neutrality proposals could push it toward google, but the current court case appears to still be pushing it off

An ISP's stance on net neutrality basically comes down to their view on the market. If I go to an ISP looking for access to the internet and their goal is to provide me the best internet access for my money, then they support net neutrality. Alternatively, if a customer paying you for internet access if viewed as a commodity to sell to large corporations, then net neutrality is a horrible injustice. I do applaud you for openly stating your company's position. No matter how much I hope your position fail

Looks like a BS site to me. InfoWorld, and only them, should be charged to deliver content to its customers, just like proposed by Verizon plan, look at the list of trackers and crap trying to load when you read TFA:

I can say with authority that no ISP wants to limit what sites users can visit.

I've started an ISP, and managed 2 others.

I can say with authority that they most certainly DO want to limit what sites users can visit, especially when it means them making more money in some other way.

The shill is you asshole. Bandwidth is ridiculously cheap to everyone EXCEPT end users. Every single instance of an ISP complaining about users that I've ever seen has been crap to avoid paying for more bandwidth because they've so over sold that people are noticing and they aren't coming anywhere near wha

Verizon possesses editorial discretion only over the content it creates. Not over the communications I engage in over its network with a third party. Eavesdrop on that communications and Verizon will find itself in criminal violation of federal wiretapping law.

Broadband providers do not have editorial control, and as such are considered common carriers. The lawyer who said they do is an idiot and should be disbarred for criminal stupidity. This act would make them contract carriers, and as such they could be held civilly or criminally liable for any infringing or illegal content passing across their network.